The group that owns California Chrome, the newest member of the Kentucky Derby winners' club, calls itself DAP Racing. The DAP stands for Dumb Ass Partners. That's not a joke. Steve Coburn, one of the co-owners, prides himself on the name.

After what happened at Churchill Downs on Saturday, some rival trainers might ask if they can join the club. Because as night was getting ready to fall on the old race track, Dale Romans, one of those rival trainers, sure did feel like a dumb ass.

During the days leading up to the 140th running of the Kentucky Derby, Romans, a Louisville-born fellow, took every chance he got to say that California Chrome did not belong anywhere near the starting gate for the most important race in the land for 3-year-old colts.

His breeding stunk. He had never won a race outside California. He was a California-bred, and no California-bred horse had won the Kentucky Derby since 1962. Anyone who took this California Chrome seriously was just plain bats. That is what Romans said.

After watching California Chrome leave the rest of the Derby field — including Romans' horse, Medal Count — in his wake, Romans wanted to call an equine audible.

He was standing in the empty Churchill paddock and came over to a writer and made it very clear he didn't want to say one thing about his colt, who finished a non-threatening eighth, some eight lengths behind the horse who should not even have been in the field. Romans had been so brash during the week that he said Medal Count was the "best horse in the field." He sure sucked me in. Thanks for that, Dale.

Anyway, Romans, who is a decent guy, wanted to make things right. He was wrong.

"I want to say I was the biggest critic of anybody, and I thought he had no chance to hit the board," Romans said. "And I was very, very wrong."

Romans had smirked about California Chrome, who was born to the sire Lucky Pulpit out of the mare Love the Chase. And that is not exactly breeding that conjures up thoughts of Triple Crown race winners. The California bred had torn through his races in California, blowing away competition in big races like the Santa Anita Handicap.

Romans thought that as soon as California Chrome stepped off the Left Coast, he was going to get inhaled by the big boys waiting for him in Kentucky.

Romans, who prides himself on being a pretty fair handicapper, said he was not even going to put California Chrome on his superfecta ticket.

Art Sherman, the polite, humble former jockey and trainer of California Chrome, wasn't going to be bothered by any negativity that was being hurled his way all week. The 77-year-old Sherman, who came to Kentucky as an 18-year-old in 1955 working in the barn that produced Derby winner Swaps, understands the game and the way it is played.

"Sometimes, you don't get a lot of respect," Sherman said. "We're in Kentucky. You know most of the Derby winners are bred here. Very few of them are outside of Kentucky. When you get a California-bred horse ... well, you didn't beat nobody. You know what I mean?"

Sherman's horse was like a Sherman tank in the Derby, and no one was going to beat him. The time was slow (2:03.66), but if this game were a ballgame, it would have been a rout. If it were a fight, it would have been stopped.

"He was much the best," Romans said. "And I was 100 percent wrong. We might have just seen a super horse. You don't fake your way to the winner's circle in the Kentucky Derby."

With that, Romans said he was off to his barn. And what was he going to do?

"I am going to pet (Medal Count) on the nose," he said with a sad smile.